But, how do you take science from an entire race, or even one person? And then you want them to blame whitey for their demise, again?

Compared to Asia and the Middle East during that era, Medieval Europe was pretty backwards scientifically, though not as much as pop culture would have you believe, as the Christian church played a huge part in knowledge transfer between generations. But the crusaders still brought back a lot of knowledge in algebra, alchemy (precursor to modern chemistry), medicine, new technologies (gunpowder, wheel barrow, etc.), and a lot of goods previously unseen in Europe.

Quote from: skink shamed

If you're implying that xtians are in any way responsible for the decline of islamic progress then lol? No xtian brought about islamic occasionalism, the antithesis to scientific inquiry of the natural world. Xtian beliefs fostered modern science while ultimately other religious worldviews didn't. There's no incompatibility with theism or believing in Christian miracles and the honest and fruitful study of an orderly, comprehensible universe.

So anybody that says "lol i thought you were smart so how can you be xtian?" is a faggot.

Are Christians responsible? No. Did they have a part in it? Yes. The Muslims had the Christians to the west and the Mongols to the east both wanting to carve out pieces of their land, so they dealt with it by being more fundamental and conservative. Why they thought this would help, I don't know. The only fault for Islam's regression is their own, but it didn't spring from nothing. And implying that there's something inherent about Christian belief that fostered modern science is just as fucking stupid as saying there's an incompatibility with theism and science. My point is not that Christians didn't have a big part to play in modern science, because they certainly did, but that to say they're the only ones responsible is revisionist history that's told because the narrative that sandniggers and chinks contributed much to modern knowledge is unpalatable for some.

We can all agree that niggers haven't contributed anything except peanut butter, though.

Why they thought this would help, I don't know. The only fault for Islam's regression is their own, but it didn't spring from nothing.

Reasoning that only works on a religious level. "We were successful once so Allah must've liked what we did. We are not successful now, so Allah must be angry with what we do. Better get back to our roots and... ban music I guess."

The Muslims had the Christians to the west and the Mongols to the east both wanting to carve out pieces of their land, so they dealt with it by being more fundamental and conservative.

That makes it sound way more gentle than it was, and overstates the Christians' impact quite a bit. The Islamic Golden Age ended when the Mongols burned to the ground Baghdad, the intellectual center behind what we now remember as "that time when Islam used to be pretty cool". More dealwithit.jpg than 'dealing with it'.

The Muslim rulers that clawed their way back into power after the Mongols, like the Ottomans, weren't completely bad, at least early on - you'd still rather live in 16th-century Istanbul than 16th-century London, for sure - but they didn't hold a candle to the Abbasids in terms of tolerance and openness; it's like comparing Charlemagne to the Roman Empire. And they grew worse and worse over time, while Europeans gradually got their shit together and stopped beheading their neighbors for reading the Bible in the wrong language.

Early Islam was very much an exlusively Arab religion. They didn't expect or want people to convert because it'd dilute "their" religion. There's a lot of proto-racism going on in Islam, especially later with the Moors. It was considered very chic to claim to be of Arab descent because they were regarded as Allahs chosen.

Yeah, that's right, though the Christians constantly fucking with the Middle East, even if not as effective at it after the first couple crusades, did not help at all and I don't think I overstated it. I shouldn't have tried to do it all from memory, however, as it's been a while since I studied that. The main point that I was getting at, however, remains unchanged; Christian Europe was backwards compared to the Islamic Middle East, they acquired knowledge through the Crusades, and Islamic Middle East's golden era ended as a reaction to external threats while Europe was able to use what they got from the Crusades to start the Renaissance. As such, saying there's something inherent about most religions (most so as not to include anything like the Amish or other religions with intentionally luddite tenants) as to whether or not it will produce scientific thought is retarded. Am I wrong on any of this?

Early Islam was very much an exlusively Arab religion. They didn't expect or want people to convert because it'd dilute "their" religion. There's a lot of proto-racism going on in Islam, especially later with the Moors. It was considered very chic to claim to be of Arab descent because they were regarded as Allahs chosen.

Don't mistake desinterest for tolerance.

I was talking about tolerance and openness to innovation and scholarship, not about religious plurality (Christians and Jews could live and work in peace under the caliphate, yes, but not rise to prominence - while non-Arab Muslims, mainly the Persians, could and often did). A project like the House of Wisdom would have been unthinkable for pretty much any other contemporary ruler, in terms of both resources and interest.

Yeah, that's right, though the Christians constantly fucking with the Middle East, even if not as effective at it after the first couple crusades, did not help at all and I don't think I overstated it. I shouldn't have tried to do it all from memory, however, as it's been a while since I studied that. The main point that I was getting at, however, remains unchanged; Christian Europe was backwards compared to the Islamic Middle East, they acquired knowledge through the Crusades, and Islamic Middle East's golden era ended as a reaction to external threats while Europe was able to use what they got from the Crusades to start the Renaissance. As such, saying there's something inherent about most religions (most so as not to include anything like the Amish or other religions with intentionally luddite tenants) as to whether or not it will produce scientific thought is retarded. Am I wrong on any of this?

Nope, not at all (ok I'd replace "the Crusades" with "Byzantine scholars fleeing the Turks" but that's nitpicking). Any religious book big enough is going to offer paragraphs justifying war or peace, freethought or tradition, polygamy or celibacy, if that's the way you wanted to go anyway. Shit, some Japanese monks turned Buddhism into a militarized religion.

Not to interrupt the cool shit on Muslim history and interactions (realtalk keep that shit coming brahs.)

I'm not religious. But I'm also not anti-religious either. I do have structural issues with the basic concept of Protestant Christianity, specifically that a shitbag can get the eternal reward by having faith, while a good person who doesn't subscribe to Christianity is condemned to an eternal torture more sadistic and hateful than anything humans have ever achieved despite having a lot of asshole sadism going around.

I wouldn't condemn anybody to a lake of fire for eternity, no matter what kind of an asshole they are, because I don't see a purpose beyond malice.

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Quote from: Megaspel

To be fair, they did eventually ban Aatrek after people found out they knew he was a kiddie diddler.

^^^ I don't subscrive to anything other than hell being a seperation from God. And that because if perfection is mixed with imperfection it all becomes imperfect. So God must remain seperate from anyone who is not perfect. God allows anyone who choses to become perfect. I also have misgivings about someone who has children and thinks they are nothing more than accidental chemical reactions that mean nothing more significant than anything an ant does. When the sun goes nova all of human history disappears so what is the point of being a good person or even living a single day beyond now? If there is nothing else out there, why are you reading these words? Why do you go to work? Why do you tip a waiter when you dine out of town, knowing you will never see that person again? Why is an innocent baby any better than John Wayne Gacey? Don't tell me becasue the baby is innocent, because if this is all a cosmic accident and there is nothing after this, then there is no such thing as morals and innocence and guilt.

Everyone thinks they have to answer in the end or they become Ed Gein.

There's no incompatibility with theism or believing in Christian miracles and the honest and fruitful study of an orderly, comprehensible universe.

This is a relatively recent invention in the face of absolutely undeniable evidence that Christian teachings are wrong, which is why you have seen the reinvention of the creation tale to be a parable instead of literal.

The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when he announced that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet Jupiter. The enemy saw that this took the Copernican theory out of the realm of hypothesis, and they gave battle immediately. They denounced both his method and its results as absurd and impious. As to his method, professors bred in the ``safe science'' favoured by the Church argued that the divinely appointed way of arriving at the truth in astronomy was by theological reasoning on texts of Scripture; and, as to his results, they insisted, first, that Aristotle knew nothing of these new revelations; and, next, that the Bible showed by all applicable types that there could be only seven planets; that this was proved by the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven-branched candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven churches of Asia; that from Galileo's doctrine consequences must logically result destructive to Christian truth. Bishops and priests therefore warned their flocks, and multitudes of the faithful besought the Inquisition to deal speedily and sharply with the heretic.

But personally I can't understand how smart people can be Christian since the story of Jesus is so clearly fabricated and false. It's every bit as bad as Scientology and Mormonism in that respect. But I know a number of very smart Mormons so

You speak in a lot of absolutes, as most atheists do. But the one thing that I have found is that science has always, and will always, fail. I say this because science has had so many theories that definitely were absolutely true that were definitely absolutely not true that I just wait for the next definite absolute to fail. Even the great Hawking got his ass handed to him by Susskind with his definitely absolute information loss theory.

Meanwhile you try to say that Jesus didn't die on the cross and come back to life - as if there were no witnesses and you can disprove it.

What I really find interesting is how science insists on rigid linear structure to time. Did you know that energy equals mass? Mass and distance are inextricably linked, the same as time (unless you fold space). So now we have energy and mass and time on equal footing and we had the entire universe the size of a basketball and oh yea, time was completely linear and no way was it space folding itself through itself because of the heat and pressure of the early universe combined with mind boggling magnetic and gravitational forces . The whole progression of early universe theory, by the way, tracks Genesis 1. Why didn't time progress on a curve? Of course it did.

And what caused accretion disks? Chaos theory? How can you induce chaos in a nonrandom, uniform environment? Everything was equidistant and evenly charged yet we clearly see galactic agglomeration. And there is no creative force?

You say all of existence comes from nothing and has no reason. I say everything comes from something and has a reason. I like my theory better since it actually makes sense.

And finally, way to goon out painting all Christians (xtians? really?) with the same brush as a few inbred Catholic church leaders from the dark ages. Shall I align you with the Dawkins sycophants and prosthelytizers? Hear me on this: I ain't no goddamn papist.

If everything comes from something, where did God come from? If He is eternal, then why could the Universe not be? etcetc endless morass.

The whole discussion is stupid. It is a question of faith, and there can be no conclusive proof of the existence/nonexistence of omnipotent gods. Religion and superstition more widely are a pretty universal human thing though, and christianity is a hell of a lot better for both the individual and the society than most options, so I'm on team Jesus and so should you.

If everything comes from something, where did God come from? If He is eternal, then why could the Universe not be? etcetc endless morass.

The whole discussion is stupid. It is a question of faith, and there can be no conclusive proof of the existence/nonexistence of omnipotent gods. Religion and superstition more widely are a pretty universal human thing though, and christianity is a hell of a lot better for both the individual and the society than most options, so I'm on team Jesus and so should you.

You're creating rules that don't have to be. In one category you have things that had a beginning: the universe. In the other category you have things that did not have a beginning: God. It is only logical that existence had a beginning, but the beginning of everything that exists could only have come from something that had no beginning. That's really as simple as it gets. Certainly the universe exists. We know that, even if it only exists in your mind. But that it exists means it had a beginning and if it did not come into existence sui initio ex nihilo(or whatever), then it had a creator.

You speak in a lot of absolutes, as most atheists do. But the one thing that I have found is that science has always, and will always, fail. I say this because science has had so many theories that definitely were absolutely true that were definitely absolutely not true that I just wait for the next definite absolute to fail. Even the great Hawking got his ass handed to him by Susskind with his definitely absolute information loss theory.

The entire point of science as a philosophy is to get beaten down into being humble in your beliefs, and to always defer to the harsh impact with reality; because you are only a pile of barely self-aware neurons, and your cherished theories are nothing but your crude best shot at predicting the behavior of an immensely complex universe. Spend forty years working out the properties of the luminiferous aether, then one day two buckeyes play a bit with half-silvered mirrors and it's all proven obsolete. And you have no excuse, no comforting lie: it's your duty to the world to let go of your beliefs in favor of the ones that better survive contact with reality. (And it's hard, very hard. Einstein had discovered a lot of mind-blowing laws of nature himself, but when confronted with the troubling evidence for a fundamental randomness of the universe he reeled, and said 'God does not play dice', though he could offer no reason for that other than his own wishes.)

Why is this such a critically important effort? Because it is the exact opposite of what the weak human heart pushes you to do.

The weak human heart wants you to adopt an idea, grow attached to it, make it the flag in which you wrap yourself, and then deliberately twist all that you know about reality to suit it; ignoring what doesn't support your idea and exalting that which does. Politics is one of the most obvious examples of this failure - how many times have you seen a Republican and a Democrat (ordinary voters, not candidates) learn the exact same facts and always see it as evidence for the rightness of their own ideas, and never against it? Or hey, look at how goony feminists can take absolutely anything as evidence for "the patriarchy" and the evilness of cis white men. They don't care about understanding reality, they only care about protecting their feelings and their self-worth.

Once you start to be wary of beliefs, of how they tend to plant roots in your mind and become important to you (instead of merely tools, which is what they are, to be discarded as soon as better tools exist)... religious beliefs start to look seriously untrustworthy. Because - in the same way as political beliefs but with much greater strength - they make you grow invested in them, they demand to become the lens through which you interpret reality, and worst of all, they offer you comfort. Whenever the universe appears cold and monstrous and uncaring, whenever all it offers are typhoons and an early death and the unstoppable march of entropy... religion offers you a simple meaning, a human-shaped purpose to your life. Do good whenever you can, care for your fellow man, don't be an asshole, and in the end everything will be all right.

And isn't it so marvelously convenient?

Isn't it exactly what we wanted to see?

If you've already seen and understood the thousands of ways in which men deceive themselves, hiding their eyes behind all sorts of blatantly (to everyone else) false flags such as "Communism is the way!" or "My family is in the right, it was the McCoys who started it!" or "My husband loves me, he only beats me because he loves me!" or "I didn't screw up, it wasn't my fault, I just had bad luck!"...

... shouldn't you start making it a habit, just in case, of checking that there isn't a flag in front of your eyes too? Shouldn't you start to ask yourself "would I still feel God's presence, if I did not have a need to feel Him?"

If everything comes from something, where did God come from? If He is eternal, then why could the Universe not be? etcetc endless morass.

The whole discussion is stupid. It is a question of faith, and there can be no conclusive proof of the existence/nonexistence of omnipotent gods. Religion and superstition more widely are a pretty universal human thing though, and christianity is a hell of a lot better for both the individual and the society than most options, so I'm on team Jesus and so should you.

You're creating rules that don't have to be. In one category you have things that had a beginning: the universe. In the other category you have things that did not have a beginning: God. It is only logical that existence had a beginning, but the beginning of everything that exists could only have come from something that had no beginning. That's really as simple as it gets. Certainly the universe exists. We know that, even if it only exists in your mind. But that it exists means it had a beginning and if it did not come into existence sui initio ex nihilo(or whatever), then it had a creator.

Why would God be another category? You're the one arbitrarily creating rules. That's why the discussion is kind stupid. If God exists, he is by definition incomprehensible to humans and doesn't need rationalizations or justification. The assumption of a creator that doesn't need a beginning is no more rational than assuming no creator, since you will always run into the problem of how can something exist that has no beginning.

Also, there's the thing that existence as we're discussing it here is a concept deeply tied to the physical universe. If nothing existed before the big bang, even that nonexistence was nonexistent, and because of that the Universe did not actually come from nothing. Darkness is the absence of light and all that. If I'm not making too much sense I can try and clarify the view after sleeping, but that might be too much of a tl:dr.

I have tested my beliefs a lot. In the end, faith is a choice and I have chosen to believe that we are not an accident. I have reasons for my beliefs and I can tie some down scientifically, but in the end I admit that it is a choice to believe.

You mention being invested and resistant. That is exactly what scientists do! Now if you say that they are acting in conflict with the ideals of true science, I will agree. I agree with most of what you said because that is how it should be. Science is fine but fallible and it knows it is. Meanwhile, scientists will do things like throw out data sets because it disproves the hypothesis they need to get a grant or sell a patent license. And how many stories have you heard about the scientist with the crazy theory who was roundly mocked and derided by the scientific community until, years, decades or centuries later, everyone takes their theory for granted?

I don't even really hold it aganst scientists. It just shows we as humans are fallible but nature is perfect in every way. I guarantee you that if oxygen contacts bare iron, it will definitley produce ferrous oxide. This will happen on Mars and on Alpha Centauri and at the outter reaches of the universe. In this way, everything is perfect and nothing fails. Iron rusts and breaks because that is what it is supposed to do.

So I don't mind people being wrong; we are all wrong and only nature is perfect. I'm just glad that the thing that made this perfect nature is there to make me right.

Mudslimes were pretty good at science until Christians stomped them repeatedly into the ground and took it from them during the Crusades. Let's at least be factually correct here.

lmao I always laugh when liberal faggots parrot this bullshit muslim propaganda that has no foot in reality.

The only reason that you saw advancements in the muslim world is because they invaded a country, took over and appropriated themselves the science that was going on at the moment. Once the people they conquered started to convert and the whole country became fully muslim, all science in those places died.

The biggest contribution of muslim science to history is the suicide bomber. or how to remove a clit using a broken soda can and not have the 8 year old girl die of infection.

Science is fine but fallible and it knows it is... And how many stories have you heard about the scientist with the crazy theory who was roundly mocked and derided by the scientific community until, years, decades or centuries later, everyone takes their theory for granted?

That's kind of the point, though. I don't think anybody claims that science has the answer to everything. It's accepted that a lot of the time it can be nothing more than a very educated guess (I hate to use the word guess, because it makes it seem arbitrary, but w/e), but scientists are willing to poke and prod at what we as a species know to see if they can find flaws in our current understanding of the universe. Science, ideally, is about seeking the truth. Yes, people may distort their findings for any number of reasons, and it may even take a long time for the truth to come out. But, in the end, the truth is what matters, even if it means we were wrong before. And that's the beauty of it; there is nothing wrong with being wrong, because that's a victory in understanding.

Also, it's not that we believe the universe came from nothing. It's more that we don't really know what happened before the universe existed, because we've got no data and so it's almost impossible to make a hypothesis. You'll sometimes hear "First there was nothing, then there was the big bang," but I think that's said more because it sounds dramatic rather than it being the accepted scientific thought.

Mudslimes were pretty good at science until Christians stomped them repeatedly into the ground and took it from them during the Crusades. Let's at least be factually correct here.

lmao I always laugh when liberal faggots parrot this bullshit muslim propaganda that has no foot in reality.

The only reason that you saw advancements in the muslim world is because they invaded a country, took over and appropriated themselves the science that was going on at the moment. Once the people they conquered started to convert and the whole country became fully muslim, all science in those places died.

The biggest contribution of muslim science to history is the suicide bomber. or how to remove a clit using a broken soda can and not have the 8 year old girl die of infection.

I was wrong about the Christians stomping them into the ground repeatedly part, but if you think this is some liberal talking point rather than historical fact you're a fucking idiot.

religion offers you a simple meaning, a human-shaped purpose to your life. Do good whenever you can, care for your fellow man, don't be an asshole, and in the end everything will be all right.

And isn't it so marvelously convenient?

Isn't it exactly what we wanted to see?

If you've already seen and understood the thousands of ways in which men deceive themselves, hiding their eyes behind all sorts of blatantly (to everyone else) false flags such as "Communism is the way!" or "My family is in the right, it was the McCoys who started it!" or "My husband loves me, he only beats me because he loves me!" or "I didn't screw up, it wasn't my fault, I just had bad luck!"...

... shouldn't you start making it a habit, just in case, of checking that there isn't a flag in front of your eyes too? Shouldn't you start to ask yourself "would I still feel God's presence, if I did not have a need to feel Him?"

While I don't disagree with the gist of your post - that people deceive themselves to make an uncaring, meaningless reality more comfortable to live in - I take issue with the idea that finding personal meaning in something is somehow pulling the wool over your eyes, that anything less than a nihilistic appraisal of the universe is somehow less "authentic". At the end of the day, it is you and only you who choose how to engage your reality.

I've read a lot of Buddhist literature the past few years and have found that for a philosophical system that doesn't espouse any particular conception of reality, there's a lot to find personal meaning in. If you have to, I guess you can say a Buddhist's conception of reality is that there isn't one: all is emptiness. You are the air you breathe, the company you keep, the food you eat, the media you ingest, etc. and yet you are also not these things. You exist in an environment that you influence and in turn influences you, and yet the boundary between you and your world is very blurry. You are not your body or your mind, because if you took six shots of tequila right now you would suddenly be dealing with a very different self than the one ten minutes ago. The point is, you're a part of something greater, and in that feeling of brotherhood and kinship with his fellow man a person can derive great joy and personal meaning that I don't think is manufactured in any way.

Now, you can choose to meditate on the futility of human endeavor or you can reach out and engage with the reality right in front of you. It's all about choice: what you allow to occupy your awareness. It can be nihilism, God, My Little Pony, the recognition of being an infinitesimal speck in a sublime and horrific cosmos, or whatever. It is what it is. Just choose.

(not trying to paint you as some angsty teenager, I just remember my own days when I was pretty lost and couldn't break out of my stupid internet atheist "all is darkness" hurr hurr bullshit)

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It's identity creating. Suddenly, it means something when you say you're a Slytherin, in the same way it means something to say you're a reformed Jew.

I think you can objectively say that if you believe in the story of Christ you are deluding yourself. God, as a greater entity, obviously much less so - especially if you have a pretty loose interpretation of what that God is like. But the story of Christ is so clearly and verifiable-y false that to believe in it is to purposely fool yourself.

I also disagree with the notion that you need religion to avoid some nihilistic outlook on life. I've been ~atheist~ since I was like 12 years old, and I think life in general is pretty cool. It's utterly meaningless in a cosmic sense, sure, but it's fun as fuck and if you live a life that you love then the world is a pretty awesome place even without religion.

I just want to be clear: you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth existed?